When Doctors Near Princeton, Newport Witness the Impossible

In Princeton, Newport, Oregon, as in every community, families entrust their most vulnerable moments to physicians — the birth of a child, the diagnosis that changes everything, the final hours of a life well lived. What families may not know is that during those final hours, physicians themselves sometimes witness phenomena that reshape their understanding of existence. Physicians' Untold Stories captures these moments with the precision and humility they deserve. Dr. Scott Kolbaba has gathered accounts that range from the quietly moving to the breathtakingly strange, all united by their source: credible medical professionals who had nothing to gain and everything to lose by sharing what they saw. For Princeton, Newport readers, this book is an invitation to consider that love might be stronger than death.

Dr. Scott Kolbaba

About the Author

Dr. Scott J. Kolbaba, MD is an internist at Northwestern Medicine in Wheaton, Illinois. He interviewed more than 200 physicians about their most extraordinary experiences.

Book cover

Physicians' Untold Stories

by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD4.5 stars (1018 reviews)

Miraculous experiences doctors are hesitant to share with their patients, or ANYONE!

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Meant to awe, instruct, and inspire — stories that will convince even the harshest skeptic. — From the introduction to Physicians' Untold Stories

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Medical Fact

Human hair grows at an average rate of 6 inches per year — about the same speed as continental drift.

Physician Burnout & Wellness Near Princeton, Newport

Physicians practicing in Princeton, Newport, Oregon work at the intersection of modern medicine and experiences that resist explanation. In conversations that rarely leave the break room or the on-call suite, doctors in and around Princeton, Newport have reported encounters with phenomena that their training never prepared them for — from patients who describe verifiable details about events that occurred while they were clinically dead, to deathbed visions shared simultaneously by multiple family members, to recoveries that defy every prognostic model available.

The medical community in Princeton, Newport includes physicians across every stage of their careers — residents navigating the exhaustion of training, mid-career practitioners balancing clinical demands with family life, and veteran physicians carrying decades of experiences that challenge the boundaries of conventional medicine. Burnout touches all of them differently, but a common thread runs through: the desire to remember why they chose medicine in the first place, and the rare but profound moments that remind them.

Physician Burnout by Specialty

Percentage reporting at least one symptom (Medscape, 2024)

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Medical Fact

The concept of "residual energy" in hospitals — emotional imprints left by intense experiences — is a hypothesis explored by consciousness researchers.

Near-Death Experiences Reported by Physicians Near Princeton, Newport

The Pacific Northwest's tradition of literary naturalism near Princeton, Newport, Oregon—from Jack London to Sherman Alexie—provides a cultural context for receiving NDE accounts that emphasizes accuracy and unflinching observation. Pacific Northwest readers and physicians approach NDE reports the way they approach nature writing: with respect for the phenomenon described, a demand for precise language, and an unwillingness to romanticize what is essentially a description of dying.

Dr. Melvin Morse's pediatric NDE research at Seattle Children's Hospital produced some of the field's most compelling data. His work near Princeton, Newport, Oregon focused on children who reported NDEs during cardiac arrest, documenting experiences that included accurate descriptions of their own resuscitation from a vantage point above the operating table. Children's NDEs, uncontaminated by adult expectation, remain the strongest evidence for veridical perception during cardiac arrest.

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Medical Fact

Some nurses report that dying patients' call lights illuminate after their death — occasionally persisting even after the electrical system is checked.

Physician Wellness, Grief & Finding Meaning Near Princeton, Newport

The Pacific Northwest's tradition of communal sauna near Princeton, Newport, Oregon—influenced by Finnish, Russian, and Native American sweat traditions—provides a healing ritual that combines heat therapy, social connection, and the psychological reset of extreme temperature contrast. Communal saunas near hospitals serve as recovery spaces where patients, families, and staff share an experience that dissolves social hierarchies and promotes physiological healing.

The outdoor wellness culture near Princeton, Newport, Oregon has produced a population that views physical health not as a medical obligation but as a form of recreation. Hiking, kayaking, skiing, and cycling are the Pacific Northwest's primary preventive care modalities—and they work. The region's residents have among the lowest obesity rates and highest cardiovascular fitness levels in the country. The outdoors is the Pacific Northwest's gym.

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Did You Know?

Approximately 65% of all emergency department visits in the U.S. occur during evenings, nights, and weekends.

Faith, Medicine & the Unexplained in Princeton, Newport, Oregon

The Pacific Northwest's Russian Orthodox communities near Princeton, Newport, Oregon—descendants of Alaska's Russian colonial period—maintain healing traditions that include holy water, icon veneration, and the akathist hymn to the Theotokos for the sick. These ancient practices, carried from Sitka and Kodiak to Seattle and Portland, provide a liturgical rhythm to illness and recovery that connects Pacific Northwest patients to the oldest Christian traditions in North America.

The Pacific Northwest's Buddhist communities near Princeton, Newport, Oregon—both Asian immigrant sanghas and Western convert communities—bring a sophisticated understanding of suffering, impermanence, and non-attachment to medical encounters. Buddhist patients who approach terminal diagnosis with equanimity aren't in denial; they're practicing a tradition that has spent 2,500 years preparing for exactly this moment.

Reader Ratings Distribution

Based on 1,018 Goodreads ratings

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Did You Know?

The first medical journal, Le Journal des Sçavans, was published in France in 1665.

Watch Dr. Kolbaba Share These Stories

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Did You Know?

Dr. Kolbaba often emphasizes that the book is not about proving the existence of God but about sharing authentic physician experiences.

Medical Heritage in Oregon

Oregon's medical history begins with the physicians who accompanied the Oregon Trail migrations in the 1840s. The Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, established in 1887 as the University of Oregon Medical School, sits atop Marquam Hill and has become the Pacific Northwest's leading academic medical center. OHSU gained national recognition for its work in neonatal medicine—Dr. Lois Johnson pioneered surfactant therapy for premature infant lung disease—and for establishing one of the first comprehensive cancer centers on the West Coast, the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, which received a transformative $500 million donation from Nike co-founder Phil Knight in 2013.

Oregon has been a leader in end-of-life care legislation. In 1994, Oregon voters passed the Death with Dignity Act, making it the first U.S. state to legalize physician-assisted death for terminally ill patients. This landmark law fundamentally changed the national conversation about end-of-life autonomy. Providence Health & Services, rooted in the arrival of the Sisters of Providence in Oregon in 1856, grew from St. Vincent Hospital in Portland into one of the West Coast's largest health systems. The Oregon State Hospital in Salem, the setting of Ken Kesey's 1962 novel 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' has a complex history spanning from its 1883 opening through controversies over patient treatment to its modern rebuilding completed in 2011.

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About the Book

The book has sold particularly well in communities dealing with grief, terminal illness, and existential questions about death.

Supernatural Folklore and Ghost Traditions in Oregon

Oregon's supernatural folklore is steeped in the dark forests and rugged coastline of the Pacific Northwest. The Bandage Man of Cannon Beach is a local legend dating to at least the 1950s—a figure wrapped in bloody bandages reportedly attacks parked cars along U.S. Route 101 near the coast, pounding on vehicles and leaving behind the smell of rotting flesh. Some versions trace the origin to a logger who was mangled in a sawmill accident.

The Shanghai Tunnels beneath Portland's Old Town are a network of underground passages once used, according to legend, to kidnap ("shanghai") men into forced labor on ships in the late 1800s. Tours of the tunnels report encounters with shadowy figures, cold spots, and the sensation of being grabbed. The White Eagle Saloon in Portland, a former hotel and bar built in 1905 that catered to Polish and Eastern European immigrants, is considered one of Oregon's most haunted buildings—bartenders and patrons report hearing a woman's scream from the upper floors, attributed to a former prostitute named Rose who was murdered in the building.

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About the Book

He was named "Top Doctor" in Internal Medicine by Chicago Magazine and a Castle Connolly Top Doctor.

Haunted Hospitals and Medical Landmarks in Oregon

Eastern Oregon State Hospital (Pendleton): The Eastern Oregon State Hospital in Pendleton operated from 1913 to the 1970s. The facility, which treated psychiatric patients using methods including hydrotherapy and lobotomy, is associated with reports of unexplained crying and banging from the abandoned patient wards. The tunnels beneath the facility are said to be particularly active with paranormal phenomena.

Oregon State Hospital (Salem): The Oregon State Hospital, immortalized in Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' has operated since 1883 and has a deeply troubled history. In 1913, over 3,500 copper urns containing the cremated remains of unclaimed patients were discovered in a storage area—later memorialized in a dedicated facility. Staff in the older buildings reported seeing apparitions of patients and hearing screams from wards that were empty, particularly near the electroshock therapy rooms.

Types of Phenomena in the Book

Distribution across 26 physician accounts

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Research Finding

Compassion training programs for healthcare workers reduce emotional exhaustion and increase job satisfaction within 8 weeks.

How This Book Can Help You

Oregon's pioneering Death with Dignity Act places the state at the forefront of the medical and ethical questions surrounding end-of-life care that Dr. Kolbaba explores from a different angle in Physicians' Untold Stories. Where Oregon's law empowers patients to choose the timing of their death, Dr. Kolbaba's accounts reveal phenomena that suggest the dying process itself may hold dimensions beyond medical control. The physicians at OHSU and throughout Oregon's healthcare system, trained in the state's progressive tradition of honest conversations about death, represent the kind of practitioners most likely to openly share the unexplainable experiences that Dr. Kolbaba, at Northwestern Medicine, has made it his mission to document.

Physician wellness programs near Princeton, Newport, Oregon that incorporate this book into their reading lists report improved morale among participating clinicians. The accounts remind physicians that their work has dimensions beyond the clinical—that they are witnesses to experiences that transcend medicine, and that this witnessing is itself a form of healing.

Physicians' Untold Stories book cover — by Dr. Scott J. Kolbaba, MD
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Research Finding

Cold water immersion for 11 minutes per week increases dopamine levels by 250% and improves mood for hours afterward.

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Discover the Stories Medicine Never Says Out Loud

Physicians' Untold Stories by Scott J. Kolbaba, MD4.5 stars from 1018 readers.

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Physicians' Untold Stories by Dr. Scott Kolbaba

Amazon Bestseller

The Stories Medicine Never Told You

Over 200 physicians interviewed. 26 true stories of ghost encounters, near-death experiences, and miraculous recoveries that will change the way you think about life, death, and what lies beyond.

By Dr. Scott J. Kolbaba, MD — 4.5★ from 1,018 ratings on Goodreads